Pale pink almond blossom is a delightful sight and a harbinger of spring when it opens in late January through February. As it flowers before the leaves appear there is a delicate candy-floss appearance to the trees. You can see almond blossom in the Sierra de Grazalema grouped in orchards, or as singles marking the edges of pastures and arable fields.
I’ve been living in this lovely area of Western Andalucia for the last 20 years or so and dedicate most of my time to the running of English language tourist information websites for the towns of Cádiz, Ronda, Grazalema, the famous or infamous Caminito del Rey, and also Wildside Holidays, which promotes sustainable and eco-friendly businesses running wildlife and walking holidays in Spain.
Towns and villages: Barrado, Cabezuela del Valle, Cabrero, Casas del Castañar, El Torno, Jerte, Navaconcejo, Piornal, Rebollar, Tornavacas, Valdastillas.
Best time to visit: Mid March to mid April
Located in the extreme north-east of the province, the Valle del Jerte in Extremadura is bordered to the north by the provinces of Ávila and Salamanca, to the west by Valle del Ambroz, to the south by the city of Plasencia and to the east by La Vera. The area has become quite famous for the beauty of its cherry tree orchards in spring and for the Garganta de los Infiernos Nature Reserve.
Find a hotel close to the Valle del Jerte in Extremadura
During the second week of March the festival of El Cerezo en Flor is celebrated in the Jerte Valley when over a million and a half trees are in full bloom.
Valle del Jerte in Extremadura – Picota cherries
At this time of year a circular route through the villages by car is highly recommended. (Valdastillas, Piornal, Barrado, Cabrero, Casas del Castañar, El Torno and Rebollar. (about 50 KM)
Reserva Natural Garganta de los Infiernos
Located in the heart of the Jerte Valley, the Garganta de los Infiernos Nature Reserve is known for its streams and waterfalls and rock pools. From the Sierra de Tormantos to the southwestern slope of the Sierra de Gredos, the course of the Jerte River shapes granite and gneiss landscapes with the highest point being the Cuerda de los Infiernos at more than 2,000 meters and the Cerro del Estecillo, an old glacier, considered to be the origin of the Jerte valley.
Wildlife and nature walks in the Reserva Natural Garganta de los Infiernos
In the deciduous forests there are some large specimens of oak along with hawthorn, yew, holly, birch, strawberry and chestnut trees. In the undergrowth of oaks there are abundant species of ferns and orchids. On the sunniest slopes there are large areas of the cultivated picota cherry.
Autumn in the Valle del Jerte
The Garganta de los Infiernos
The variety of ecosystems in the Garganta de los Infiernos Nature Reserve favors the abundance and diversity of fauna. The waters of this reserve are populated by a number of fish species such as common trout, the most characteristic of these rivers. Although amphibians such as salamanders and newts are also present.
At the river side look out for kingfisher and dipper and in the skies, griffon vulture and especially golden eagles.
Mammals represented in the area include wildcat and genet, otter and the little known desman. The most abundant mammal species in the area is Spanish Ibex.
The Garganta de los Infiernos Natural Reserve has quite a few walking routes through some of the most beautiful places in the Jerte region such as: Los Pilones, Carlos V Route, Cordel del Valle and the route through Upper Extremadura. (More info on these routes at the main information centre in Cabezuela del Valle
The Garganta de los Infiernos Nature Reserve – Valle del Jerte, Caceres, Extremadura
Tourist offices and museums
Oficina de turismo del Valle del Jerte
Paraje de Peñas Albas, s/n, 10610 Cabezuela del Valle, Càceres
This is the main tourist office to head for where you will be able to get information about the area in general along with maps and guides for walking routes in the area.
Museo de la Cereza
In the same town as the main tourist office for the area you can also find the cherry museum. Here, information panels and exhibitions explain the cultivation of the world famous Jerte cherries.
Take a trip on the Wildside! Discover the wildlife and nature of Spain, its Natural and National Parks and find the top wildlife, activity and walking holiday companies.
Iberia Nature Forum
Struggling with identifying those bugs and beasties? Why not check out the Iberia nature Forum! https://iberianatureforum.com/
I’ve been living in this lovely area of Western Andalucia for the last 20 years or so and dedicate most of my time to the running of English language tourist information websites for the towns of Cádiz, Ronda, Grazalema, the famous or infamous Caminito del Rey, and also Wildside Holidays, which promotes sustainable and eco-friendly businesses running wildlife and walking holidays in Spain.
Quercus suber (Cork) is a type of evergreen oak tree native to the Mediterranean region. The tree has adapted to the problems of fire and drought in this area by growing a thicker bark as a protective layer. This outer layer of cork has many industrial uses and huge open forests have been developed to benefit from it in 7 countries bordering the Mediterranean sea – covering some 2.7 million hectares in Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia, and France. So lets learn about Cork and its huge importance to the environment.
These majestic oak trees are not felled or damaged during the cork harvest, small professional teams work through the forests, carefully stripping the bark by hand using a special axe. This is done during the heat of the summer when it comes away more freely. The cork sheets are carried out on mules before being stacked onto lorries and stored. The outer tree layer regenerates over 9 to 12 years, a tree will be approximately 50 years old before its bark will be of suitable quality for a wine stopper and live on to be around 200 years old.
Forests have little or no work carried out in between harvests, so you can envisage the importance to wildlife that these forests hold as havens for rare and endemic species. Recent research has discovered a wealth of animal and plant forms that exist here because of the humidity. The heavy tree canopy and many deep water channels combine to create a subtropical micro climate in a normally dry part of Spain.
These forests are exemplary in their balance of conservation and economic development. Spain is the second largest producer at around 25% of the world supply (following Portugal), selling around 300 million euros of cork abroad, and providing a source of livelihood for many thousands of people.
Cork has been used by humans in the Mediterranean basin since the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans used it for sealing jars, for roofing and for making beehives. Beginning in the 18th century cork became widely used in industry, particularly after the development of the cork stopper by Dom Pierre Pérignon , a Benedictine monk well known for creating the first champagne. Cork’s elasticity combined with its near-impermeability makes it an ideal material for bottle stoppers. The most expensive corks are cut from one piece, but “agglomerated” corks are made from the smaller grains glued together. Offcuts of cork and scraps are collected for processing into alternative cork products – nothing is wasted.
Video (in Spanish) well worth watching
What is cork used for?
Due to cork’s unique qualities its applications are diverse; from spacecraft heat shields and fairings to mopping up oil spills. Some of the following uses you may be aware of; flooring, wall covering, sound/heat insulation, engine gaskets, fishing floats, shoes, furniture, kitchen utensils, ornaments, handles for fishing rods, walking poles and bicycles, helmet linings, dartboards, the core of baseballs, hockey and cricket balls.
After a recent decline in use as wine-closures when cheaper synthetic alternatives were heavily marketed, cork wine-stoppers are making a comeback. Its environmental impact is dramatically less than that of oil and metal based closures, plus it is the best material suited for red wines, cognacs etc., allowing oxygen to interact with wine for proper ageing.
Environmentalists, WWF and ornithological groups are campaigning to save the cork industry from further decline by making wine drinkers more aware of their power in choosing cork only bottles. If the market demand for cork stoppers were to decrease significantly, the entire system could collapse (cork stoppers represent about 60% of all cork based production), it is likely that the forests could be lost through neglect, fire, diversification and over-grazing during the next 10 years.
Cork is a completely natural, renewable, recyclable material with a huge importance to the environment.
Where can you go to find out more?
Well, your first stop should be the natural park of Los Alcornocales. Los Alcornocales is a forest of Cork oak trees, the largest in Iberia and therefore important to the worlds cork supply. The park, which also embraces mountains, creates a green corridor from the Sierra de Grazalema natural park through to the coastal zone at Tarifa.
Take a trip on the Wildside! Discover the wildlife and nature of Spain, its Natural and National Parks and find the top wildlife, activity and walking holiday companies.
Iberia Nature Forum
Struggling with identifying those bugs and beasties? Why not check out the Iberia nature Forum! https://iberianatureforum.com/
I’ve been living in this lovely area of Western Andalucia for the last 20 years or so and dedicate most of my time to the running of English language tourist information websites for the towns of Cádiz, Ronda, Grazalema, the famous or infamous Caminito del Rey, and also Wildside Holidays, which promotes sustainable and eco-friendly businesses running wildlife and walking holidays in Spain.
The Spanish Fir (Abies pinsapo) is a species of tree which survived the last glaciation. An elegant tree growing to a height of about 25m with a conical shape. Its growth is dense and a rich green, although there are occasional specimens of a blue colouration. The branches generally form rings around the trunk. The roots which are thick and long are sometimes very superficial. The trunk is straight and cylindrical but in some old individuals the shape can be irregular, twisted and contorted with more than one leader. (This is often due to beetle damage). The leaves are needle-shaped, rigid and somewhat sharp, these needles living up to 15 years, the maximum age among all gymnosperms.
These trees need high humidity and shady slopes or soils that retain a certain amount of water. Male and female cones are present on the same individual, but to avoid inbreeding the female cones are at the top of the tree (giving more chance of wind dispersal) and the male cones are lower down towards the middle.
The female cone is made up of many individual triangular pieces; a small membranous wing that helps in wind dispersal, and the attached seed. These cones disintegrate and release the seeds during the autumn. Pinsapos, as they are known in Spanish, are biologically fir trees and belong to the group of gymnosperms or plants without true flowers such as cedars, pines and cypresses.
Their distribution is very restricted but the Spanish fir tree can be found in three forest masses which are:
‘Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park‘; occupying about 500 hectares forming a single forest in the Sierra del Pinar between Grazalema and Benamahoma
‘Sierra de las Nieves National Park‘; occupying a large area of about 3,000 hectares, both in concentrated small groups and more openly distributed with a mix of other species. They are expanding well between the municipalities of Parauta, Ronda, El Burgo, Yunquera and Tolox.
‘El Paraje Natural Los Reales de Sierra Bermeja’; occupying about 70 acres in Los Reales, between Estepona and Jubrique / Genalguacil (Damaged by fire in 2021 but the main core forest survived)
Discovery of the Spanish fir tree
Clemente Rubio is currently attributed to the botanical discovery of the pinsapo as he took note of them in 1809 during a trip to the Serrania de Ronda. His writings were long believed lost but were rediscovered:
“We entered the pine forest .. in which there are few oaks and everything else pinsapos. They look from some distance like dark cypress with a conical shape …. “…
But the discovery for science is due to the pharmacists Haensel and Prolongo who showed sprigs of pinsapo to the botanist Edmond Boissier of Geneva who visited the city of Málaga in 1837.
Near Estepona he was able to see pinsapo trees with his own eyes on an autumn excursion with his friends Haensel and Prolongo and came to identify the tree through the cone as belonging to the genus Abies. There is nothing like the words of E. Boissier from his book “Voyaje Botanique dans le midi d’Espagne” to describe the emotion of the moment
… very near there, the guide showed us the first pinsapo from afar, with shouts of joy running full of emotion, but unfortunately the tree had no fruit, a second, third look gave me false hopes, I was lucky enough in the end and saw one whose upper branches were laden with upright cones. We hastened to scramble to pick them and there was no doubt about the kind of tree and its uniqueness. Abies was certainly close to our common fir …
Boissier reported the discovery in a magazine the next year giving the scientific name – Abies pinsapo.
Abies pinsapo are protected through environmental laws and regulations of protected natural areas of Andalucia, European directives and recently as a Biosphere Reserve. The pinsapo is listed as Endangered (EN) on the Red List of Threatened Vascular Flora of Andalusia.
Iberia Nature Forum
Discover the Iberia Nature Forum – Environment, geography, nature, landscape, climate, culture, history, rural tourism and travel.
I’ve been living in this lovely area of Western Andalucia for the last 20 years or so and dedicate most of my time to the running of English language tourist information websites for the towns of Cádiz, Ronda, Grazalema, the famous or infamous Caminito del Rey, and also Wildside Holidays, which promotes sustainable and eco-friendly businesses running wildlife and walking holidays in Spain.
Take a trip on the Wildside! Discover the wildlife and nature of Spain, its Natural and National Parks and find the top wildlife, activity and walking holiday companies in Spain.
